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Williams F1 chief technical officer Paddy Lowe says the Halo is proving to be „quite difficult“ to incorporate into its 2018 entry.

The divisive device will debut in Formula 1 next season, but it appears as though Williams got the memo too late to make the safety feature work for its newest car.

„It’s a big project to put that in the car,“ said Lowe. „We’re still working on it, and the integration is quite difficult.

„There are very high loads to accommodate, so I think the bigger impact is structural rather than aerodynamic.“

The announcement that the Halo would become a mandatory safety requirement for 2018 was made back in July and, at that point, teams were already voicing concerns that it may be difficult to add the device with cars development already at such an advanced stage.

„There is some performance (in it), I guess,“ Lowe said. „Probably the major area is how efficiently you can provide the mounting requirements to meet the loads — how much weight do you have to throw at that problem? Because it’s all weight.

„There are some minor aerodynamic effects. We haven’t seen it as a huge project; the detriment is not particularly large. There is some room for maneuver there, but not a lot.“